


wonderboy

by leo_minor



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Genre: Character Study, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Commission work, First Crush, Fluff, Growing Up Together, M/M, Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Over the Years, Pre-ALBW, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25308574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leo_minor/pseuds/leo_minor
Summary: They meet on his sixth birthday - their six birthday, unlikely friends from worlds a wall apart. At twelve years of age they reunite, having formed an image of each other over time that's now confronted with reality. Link's faced with his fairy friend, and Ravio with the one he calls wonderboy. But a child's perception rarely lies !
Relationships: Link/Ravio (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 86





	wonderboy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InfiniteSeahorse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteSeahorse/gifts).



> this work is a commission for InfiniteSeahorse who was kind enough to let me develop this story freely ! thank you again & enjoy your read !

They meet on his sixth birthday.

It’s the most wonderful one yet, because he gets a grownup present, his first. Over the years he’s gotten his fair share of toys and nursery rhymes, wooden trains and itchy cardigans. This time his present is _cool,_ and for a while he can’t stop staring at it, eyes so wide that he has to blink twice as often, much to his audience’s amusement. It’s propped against the chimney, looking mighty pretty and mighty strong. Just looking at it makes him feel like a bigger boy, ready to take on bigger things.

His present is a sword.

It’s a dull one, made of old oak wood, but to him it’s the knight in shining armour’s iconic weapon, and a sight to behold. In his little hands it feels like the legendary sword itself. When his fingers close over the roughly sanded hilt, he feels a wave of bravery fill his chest and gasps. His uncle ruffles his mop of blond hair with his great big hand and gives a booming laugh.

“You like it, Link ?”

He doesn’t only like it – he _adores_ it. He cherishes it. Every other toy he owns is thereafter abandoned under the bed, left to dusty limbo, but the sword he keeps at his side at all times, slipping its blade into his leather belt. It drags on the floor when he walks, nearly as tall as him, but he trudges on just the same, with a look of utmost determination that his aunt compliments with her hands clasped together.

“You look all grown up, my dear,” she tells him, and he beams back his agreement.

There’s still half of his birthday cake left on the table, stripped by his sly spoon of all its strawberries, but he’s much more eager to play than to eat, and the plate he’s handed is refused. The sun is high and the wind kind, toying with the tall grass at the back of their garden. With his uncle’s permission he runs out of the cottage’s back door, sword brandished high. Trudging through the plants and flowers is his first little adventure, and with each step his heart beats faster. The weight of the wooden weapon gives him a sense of tremendous importance. He slashes at the grass proudly and stumbles out of the patch, both sweaty and grinning, and in this moment nothing can bring him down from his high, a boy just six and cheeks flushed, having the exploration of his life.

Only, he does pause. His little arm does relax and return to his side, allowing the blade’s tip to draw a straight line through the dirt patch. He does cock his head to the side, just enough to catch the echo of what he’d heard. An adventurer’s instincts are never wrong. Someone is crying close by, and without a moment to lose he jumps down onto the little road behind his home.

In the corner, where rocks meet trees, sits another boy.

He doesn’t mean to make noise, but his sword trails across the pebbled path and sends the little stones raining around his feet. The resulting noise is quiet, and yet it’s enough to send those two bright green eyes cowering further into the bosquet and out of view. His grip tightens on his sword, an unneeded gesture judging by the sniffles being desperately muffled in the trees’ shade. The darkness is just a little scary, and part of him wants to turn on his heels and climb back into the garden, where the most unknown creature he’ll come across is a bee, but he knows a hero’s duty is to help those in need, and behind all those leaves the crying still hasn’t stopped. He lets go of his weapon and takes one step closer.

He raises both his hands to his chest. “ _Are you alright ?”_

The warbled breathing quiets down.

He seizes the opportunity to hop over the thin line of tall grass and into the little grove. It’s a neat little jump, but the new weight of his sword throws him off balance. He finishes his jump on his backside and rolls a few feet, hands instinctively covering his face, and from his position, forehead pressed into the dirt, he hears a soft giggle.

Slowly, he takes his hands off of his face, and in the patch of sunlight sees the boy. Locks of curly purple hair shoot in every direction, covering most of his face, and under the longest strands he can make out a smile. When he catches Link peeking, his hands rush to clear his face of his rebellious fringe, smudging his cheeks with undried tears in the process. His bare legs are trembling.

“Hello,” he says.

The single word comes out louder than he’d intended, and he flinches back against the tree trunk behind him. Beneath the winding branches, he looks very small indeed. His eyes flicker from left to right every time the wind blows over their hiding place, like anything might leap out at him. Link pushes himself up onto his knees and wipes the grime off his face with his sleeve.

“ _Why were you crying ?”_

The gesturing only seems to worry the boy more. When Link tries to come closer, his back thumps against the tree loudly, and he yelps in pain. His gaze keeps wandering back to Link’s hip, where the toy sword lies muddy and blunt. Swallowing his pride, he pulls his belt’s buckle free and sets it aside along with his most loved present, leaving it in a patch of daisies.

The boy’s shoulders untense, sliding down the tree trunk along with the rest of his body when he sighs. When he looks back up at Link, his eyes are no longer so wide. He tilts his head, sending curls drooping down his face again. “You can’t… talk ?”

Link shakes his head.

“Oh, okay,” the boy exhales. “That’s sad. You heard me, right ? I’m sorry. My dad says big boys don’t cry.”

_“I cry sometimes,”_ Link signs, even though he doesn’t, not really.

The boy continues as though he hasn’t seen him, combing his dirty hands through his hair. “I’m a bit lost. I don’t know where this is, but it’s not home. Today’s my birthday, and –“

At the mere word Link’s face lights up – with the sweet flavour of his aunt’s cake and the delicate bitterness of the strawberries he’s picked off it, with the warmth of his uncle’s smile, and with the bursting pride he feels holding the little sword sitting in the flowers, waiting for him. The boy’s worried frown turns upside down, and his worried fingers stop tugging so hard on his locks.

“Yours too ?”

As soon as Link nods, the boy lets his back separate from the tree and scoots closer, his fear long gone. Excited eyes seek his own insistently, in a way he can’t resist. “How old are you ?”

Six of Link’s fingers are lifted towards the sky. The boy giggles in delight, and in a quiet voice, admits :

“I’m six as well !”

Giddy with the coincidence, both of them shake their little hands, treating the matter with utmost importance. Link points to himself and signs his name, a motion that escapes the strange boy entirely.

“Is that what you’re called ?” he asks, copying the gesture with endearing clumsiness. “Well, I’m Ravio. It’s a pleasure to meet you…” And he does the gesture again.

Conversation is tough, but Link isn’t discouraged. He is, after all, the greatest of adventurers, and the boy – Ravio – is in dire need of help. He wracks his brains for a moment before pointing at him and tilting his head. _“Where are you from ?”_

Not Kakariko, that’s for sure. His skin is darker than anyone Link’s come across in his short life, and his hair an exotic colour he didn’t know existed. The boy confirms his suspicions with a wet sniffle and gives their surroundings a sorry look. “Not around here. I don’t recognise the flowers or the trees. I think I messed up – my dad brought me a bracelet from the market, as my first grown-up present, but it started _glowing,_ really weird, and I…”

For a moment the boy pauses and looks down at his wrist, where a golden band three sizes two big and rusted at the edges rests. There’s a shiny stone encased in the centre of the bracelet, and just for a second Link thinks he sees it gleam, but when he looks again it’s gone back to being shiny and pretty, but dull. The boy runs his finger down the rough metal and lifts scared eyes towards Link.

“I think I fell through the wall.”

Now, the boy’s been strange from the start. It isn’t just his appearance but the way he speaks and carries himself, as well. Everything about him is foreign and just a little unsettling. This just confirms the feeling he’d had, spot on. Link doesn’t pretend he knows everything, but for a proud boy of smack on six he thinks he knows quite a lot, and he knows for certain that you can’t fall through a wall. That’s, he thinks, the whole point of it. Despite it, when the boy’s eyes flicker towards the stone wall surrounding the patch, Link is compelled to follow his gaze.

And against his better judgement, he has to admit that it’s most definitely glowing.

A dozen stone bricks bathe in a gentle puddle of light that caresses their cracks and blemishes. There seems to be a slit running down the rampart, about the size of a grown-up, he thinks. His first reaction is to jerk back, his hand reaching for the hilt of his sword. His second is to wonder how on earth he’d missed that over his years of playing here under the tree’s shade.

“Don’t be scared,” the boy tells him pleasantly. “There are plenty around.”

Link can only shake his head. Something like this only exists in the fairy tales his aunt reads him, not in the real world, and certainly not in Hyrule.

“Ah,” the boy nods, unperturbed. “Not here ? In my village they’re all over the place. People think they’re _cursed._ I think this one’s how I fell through.”

Loony, Link thinks privately. His hold on his sword tightens a little. The other boy might be a bit insane.

His thoughts are perhaps not as private as they seem, for the boy’s relaxed expression tenses up again, eyebrows scrunching together on his little forehead. “I’m scaring you.”

Maybe, Link admits, but shakes his head. The boy is _strange._ The crack in the wall is _strange._ He kind of wants to go home.

“I’m sorry,” the boy says anyway. “I should go back, or my dad will worry. You were very nice, mute boy ! Thank you for keeping me company.”

He stumbles back onto his feet, fumbling with the bracelet on his wrist. Link wants to reach out and stop him – he still wants to ask questions, the boy is just so _new_ – but his arm is out of reach, and his fingers close over thin air. The boy chuckles merrily at his attempt.

“What, do you wanna be friends ? I really have to go, but I promise I’ll come back and visit !”

Wasting no time in waiting for an answer, the strange boy is already strolling through the grass patch, letting his bare feet drag through the leaves. Under his palm the crack in the wall flares brighter. The pleasant light beam reflects onto the boy’s face in a clear line, stopped only by his bright smile. Basking in the light’s steady glow, the shadows of branches above cast upon his face, he doesn’t look entirely of this world. His eyes are set square on Link’s face. Fighting intimidation, he finds it within himself to manage a nod.

“I’m glad,” the boy says softly. He lifts a hand to wave, and pushes the other through into the light. “Happy birthday to us, mute boy ! See you soon !”

His farewell is finished off with an echoing giggle that Link won’t be able to get out of his head for months, one that knocks on tree trunks and brushes against flower patches, and by the time it’s died down, the boy is gone. He’s met a fairy, he’s certain of it. He’s met a fairy and it’s disappeared through the wall.

His little sword goes back into his belt, safely tucked close within reach. He brushes the dirt off his knees and looks over the clearing. The crack in the stone has disappeared completely. Maybe the encounter was a dream, but he feels so awake.

And with the distinctive detachment only young children possess, he decides it doesn’t matter at all.

He’s had his adventure, across the small path that leads him back home. He’s even helped the boy, be he real or vision, get back onto his feet like a good knight should. His stomach is grumbling, but there’s a plate’s worth of cake back in the cottage, strawberry-less and waiting for him. He’s, for the first and last time, just six, and what an age to be ! There’s nothing in the world he needs to care for, other than where his little legs will take him. With the strange boy’s green eyes shining in his mind, he toddles back home chin high and shoulders straight, and when his uncle gives his head a welcoming pat, he buzzes with pride that fills him from head to toe.

Munching on a spoonful of cake and retelling his adventures with exploding energy, he forgets all about the fear and the doubt, and those scary shadows that they’d hid in, both of them. He’ll forget most of what they talked about, over time, but he won’t ever forget about the boy.

The one with the sparkling green eyes, his very first friend.

He doesn’t forget, but to say he _remembers_ would be too kind.

The mind twists what it doesn’t know. It tugs and pulls and rips at thoughts it cannot entirely understand. By the time Link turns seven the boy’s face has become a mere blur of colours without defining features which his memory toys with each night. He lies on his back and stares at the wooden ceiling above him, focusing at times on the nail jutting down from the upper floor’s boards, others on the damp patch that’s been getting bigger, these past few weeks, leaks and creeks encouraged by the cold seasons befalling Hyrule. He tries to picture what the boy’s expressions had been like. Always the mystical figure he conjures has a smile on its face, and always it bathes in that enticing light leading to another world. Most nights there are stars in his eyes. Some, they’re on his cheeks instead, a handful of shining freckles. On his eighth birthday, with no more than a faint sense of how the boy had looked, he goes back to the clearing with childish hope he has yet to give up on. His sword no longer drags down the path. Tattered on the sides, it barely reaches past the top of his boots. There’s no one by the tree’s shade, and no light illuminates the grove. The boy is eight today, too.

He spends the next four years growing up. It’s a sad process during which every morning loses its promising shine. He breaks the sword while training with it in the backyard and finds that no tears spring to his eyes, like they might have a mere year earlier. The dryness of his cheeks makes him sadder than the loss of his favourite weapon, splintered and kicked under his bed. He learns to read and dislikes it. He goes to the church up north and worse, loathes it. He visits it only once more, in the summer months following his tenth birthday. His aunt is dead. He’s told life is like that, and wishes he were six again.

When he hits eleven and a half, on a fiery autumn day, he’s passed on the first tools of his trade-to-come. His uncle’s gotten thinner in the past year, and greyer. His hand on Link’s head trembles so harshly its warmth disappears as fast as it had come. He wants someone to take on the family business, and no one else is better suited for the job. Dreams of knighthood quietened, Link accepts his new title as blacksmith in training without a sideward word. One day he wonders how the strange boy with the green eyes is doing, and if he too has a job, his first. The next day, it’s left his mind entirely.

He gets his first success at the price of blood and sweat. It’s far from perfect, but he spends hours staring at the gentle dip of its blade. It’s a sword, a real one this time, with a thin metal hilt he sculpts himself. In his hands it feels light and perfectly balanced, and he starts keeping it close at hand. When he shows it to his uncle, the ruffle his hair earns is almost like the old ones, brimming with love.

“Link, I hope you know that you’re my pride and joy.”

These words ignite something within him that he thought he’d disciplined, and he feels no need to snuff out the flame. He’s not yet a teen. His cheeks are still round and rosy and his eyes still a babyish blue. Just over eleven, he still has the time to take back the childhood he’s put on pause. He works in the mornings and spends the afternoons in town or exploring the forests, parading around with his very own crafted sword. The blade shines prettily in the moonlight. The same pride he had felt five years before explodes within, and he welcomes it with open arms. He responds to every errand with an eager smile. Once a recluse, now greeted warmly by all, he gets his share of love notes in the seasons that follow, and declines them all. His opinion is and remains that he’s too young to know what a crush might be, and far too busy. Swords don’t craft themselves, and the forests await. He fixes his wooden sword and nails it to his bedroom wall, a small reminder that he hasn’t changed, not that much.

Or perhaps not at all – so says the strange boy when he knocks on his door.

He’s twelve today. It’s not so bad. His uncle can’t afford a present for him this year, so he uses his own pay to buy fresh milk and eggs. With what’s left in the cupboards and the apples growing steadily in the backyard, he follows his aunt’s recipe to the letter and sets on the kitchen table the most golden of apple pies. The neighbours bring over a huge pot of creamed milk as a gift, and with a dollop on top of their plates, they down half of the pie together. It’s a good afternoon, a sunny one – a lazy one better yet, and all he wants to do is sprawl out in the grass and let the warmth lull him to sleep. The boy at the door has other plans, indeed. His very presence destabilises Link so badly he nearly slams the door in his face and pulls back the lock.

Lost memories of the strange boy’s face don’t stop Link from recognising him immediately, and he feels humbly ashamed of all the visions he’d conjured for years on end, different expressions and different looks, for in the end the boy could look no other way than this. His cheeks have considerably thinned, but his bright, green eyes don’t lie. He’s grinning as he was six years ago, leaning coolly against the doorframe. Link’s eyes are so wide that they’re slowly beginning to dry, and his neck so tense his head might simply snap off.

“Happy birthday !” the boy announces joyfully.

He allows Link to stare at him silently for a full minute before saving the conversation with a hearty laugh. It mingles with the giggle that’s been ringing through Link’s head since their first meeting and stays there firmly locked. Another memory he won’t be able to shake, but this one he doesn’t curse, and won’t, not even on the bad days, for it’s so happy, leaving joy everywhere in its wake, and not an ounce as intimidating as the first. Listening to that laugh Link lets himself be lured outside. The door closes behind him.

“Another five of those for the ones I missed,” the boy continues. “I tried to come sooner, really ! Things just have a darn habit of gettin’ in the way !”

That’s alright, Link tries to sign, but his hands are too heavy for him to lift and settle snuggly by his sides. Now of all times ! You’ve grown up with quite the shyness, his aunt would tell him sternly, but that’s no reason not to greet those around you. Especially, he thinks, not his very first friend.

Under the boy’s eager gaze he lifts his arms to his chest’s height and half forms a hello when his face turns a blazing shade of pink. He covers it when tense hands, willing to hide his shame just long enough to trigger his memory, but nothing comes back.

He’s… forgotten his name.

For six years, he’s just thought of him as ‘the boy.’ And now, as they stand in front of each other, two kids barely in their teens, the memory of the boy’s voice, introducing himself so clearly, has been reduced to a faint murmur he can’t make out. He dares look up, with frantic wide eyes, into the boy’s thin face.

He’s grinning again; it’s like he never stops to rest. “You don’t know what to call me, do you ?”

Link shakes his head once, in a slow motion that’s both apologetic and cripplingly embarrassed. He’s been waiting six summers. Dreaming six winters. This isn’t quite how things had turned out in his reverie.

But the boy only huffs sharply and reaches out to take both his hands. There are still cuts all over his fingers, from his latest assignments, and for a moment he’s ashamed of every little pale mark too – and then the boy grips them tightly, and admits :

“I don’t remember your name either. I couldn’t memorise the gestures, so you’ll just have to show me again !”

He pushes both of Link’s hands back towards him and gives a nod.

With unsure gestures, as awkward as when he was six, he forms the four letters one by one. When he’s done he lets both his hands drop back to his sides and hides them behind his back. He’s not self-conscious, but the boy makes him want to hide every little thing that’s wrong with him. There’s nothing wrong with the boy. And he has a smile like no other.

“Pleased to meet you, Link,” he says, and places a hand on his chest, just above his heart. “I’m Ravio !”

Of course he is. Ravio.

“Now, won’t you let me in ?”

The boy – _Ravio_ – has grown up pretty, and Link finds it difficult to focus on his outpouring words. He rarely stops to breathe, and when he does, eager eyes are there to follow the slight hunch of his shoulders as he shifts forward for a fraction of a second, before rising back up. He’s lucky to have grown up pretty. People say Link has grown up fair, but personally, he thinks he’s grown up plain. There’s nothing wrong with that, he thinks quite equally, but looking at Ravio’s freckled face, he sort of wishes he’d grown up pretty. The feeling is uncomfortably foreign, and so he folds it up into his pocket and promises to think about it later, when his guest has stopped being so captivating.

“Forgot to introduce you to Sheerow,” Ravio is saying, and to his astonishment produces a small bundle of white feathers from his scarf. The bundle opens a single, crimson eye and lets out a piercing squeak. “Me ‘n good ol’ Sheerow’ve been saddled up together for a year now ! He’s as much my dear friend as you are, won– I mean, Link !”

His slip of the tongue, the first occurrence of many, goes unnoticed by his host, who is far too busy peering over the little white creature. Hyrule has his share of birds, some hunter, some hunted, and he likes to think his adventures deep into the forests have familiarised him with most of them. This, it turns out, may have been wrong. He assumes Sheerow is a bird, and has to stick to that, because the creature holds no likeliness to any other animal he knows – his red eye, buried deep between small feathers, is of a colour so deep he has trouble looking away. Turning his gaze to the bird’s master, he experiences a similar feeling.

“As I was sayin,” Ravio picks up again, visibly unaware that Link has little idea what he’s been babbling about up to now, or unbothered by his absence of reaction. It’s a small insight into his life that Link is careful to note, alongside any detail he can find : Ravio likes to talk. This habit seems not only for his company’s sake, but for his own. The words follow each other with unmatched smoothness. He has no trace of Link’s hesitation. As he hears but does not listen he finds himself envious again of the melodies the boy summons in his speech. Ravio’s pretty. Ravio speaks in music and smiles like the sun.

Ravio speaks of Lorule. He speaks of his hometown, of his birthdays and of his feathery partner. He describes dark-bricked houses and colourful rooves and the cracks in the walls that allowed him to return. He speaks of such small details that Link, catching only one word out of three, still finds himself captivated. As he speaks he twirls his bracelet around his wrist, a six year-old gift of tainted copper, the purple gem encased within it glowing its gentle glow still. Every so often, he scratches the top of his right ear, a compulsive gesture to fill the single seconds of silence he leaves between them when he pauses to catch his breath. Each tremor of his fingers, and each brush of his hair, Link takes in intently. There’s a certain warmth in his chest, circling his ribcage enticingly, a pressure to memorise all of these hints that Ravio lets slip. As they face each other for the first time in so long Link realises the dryness in his mouth is thirst for knowledge, and that warmth in his chest is bubbling happiness.

Ravio’s smiling when he lets his voice trail off and leans forward, placing his chin up top of his bony hands. He hasn’t spoken, Link remarks, of his family nor of his home. The remaining half of the pie, untouched and sitting on the kitchen counter under a large blue rag, is close at hand, and he has the sense to offer a piece to his guest. The boy’s face shines somehow brighter, but he hesitates with the spoon that he’s gives, his fingers, toying with the edge without outright picking it up. Link watches his teeth sink into his lip, a gently tarnished white over his tanned skin, and eventually look at the dish. The cream gleams in the sunlight, the crust is steamy and warm, and the pie is, all in all, difficult to resist. His jaw unclamps to allow his lips to part, and he mumbles :

“Is it really alright ?”

_“It’s your birthday too,”_ Link signs. It’s his first full sentence to the boy.

“Thank you,” Ravio says quietly, and seizes the spoon. The low volume his voice boasts is uncharacteristic, and to his jittery host more than an unnerving sign. He watches the sculpted curve of the wooden spoon dig into the first slice of apple with hawk-like eyes. Has he made a misstep in offering the dish ? His breath is held, at the brink of his throat, waiting for a sign, a move, but Ravio only stares at the browned fruit sitting snug on the end of his spoon, and in his eyes Link finds a spark of pleasure that would be brighter, were they not narrow with shame. Looking at the boy’s thin fingers wrapped around the wooden handle, he understands. He grabs the knife he’s left on the plate and cuts himself a piece as well.

They take their first bite together, and dissolve into identical smiles.

Ravio does not stop talking even as he’s eating. The pieces he cuts off the end of his pie are deliberately small, and he lets each melt on his tongue, so that by the time Link has finished his, he’s only halfway through. This process doesn’t keep him from babbling his mouth off all the while, but he speaks not of himself, having said all he feels he must. Instead, he begins to ask Link questions, delighted that communication between them is much smoother this time around. Link, with his stomach full and his face warm, is happy to indulge him, and signs with no hurry. His hands no longer tremble with quite as much uncertainty. Something about Ravio, sitting peacefully in the path of a passing sunbeam and smiling, has put him at ease.

“Do you have a job ?” the boy asks him, through a mouthful of cream. “We’re at that age now, are we not ?”

“ _Not a full-day job,”_ he admits, but does not elaborate. There’s something about the childish nature of his escapades that prevents him from bringing them up. Not today. “ _I’m a blacksmith in training.”_

This revelation impresses his guest much more than expected, and for the first time since the start of his meal Ravio drops his spoon onto the table, where it rattles for a few seconds. He ignores the noise and leans in, eyebrows arched and mouth partly open, his face the perfect expression of disbelief. “A blacksmith ?”

“ _In training,”_ Link signs again. There’s little prestige in the activity, other than its certainly noble pursuit. He has yet to forge a sword for anyone of importance, nor for anyone other than himself, for that matter. His mornings are spent bent over the blistering heat of the forge and hacking at his work with passion that, while there, does not overwhelm him. Tools, parts and basic, bland jewellery have passed from his hands to the next, but no more and no less. There’s nothing he wants less than to mislead Ravio into thinking something that is not. The uncomfortable fidget that has returned to his hands goes unfortunately unnoticed, and the boy leaning over the table doesn’t look the least bit humbled. Instead, he swallows his mouthful hurriedly and presses :

“You mean that you work in a forge ? A real, hot ‘n burning one ?”

Wondering if there’s another kind, Link only nods.

“Whew,” Ravio says, and leans back against his chair. His arms cross over his chest and he pushes further against his seat until its weight is balancing upon its two back legs, and in this position contemplates the idea. His eyes gloss over Link once more, making sense perhaps of certain details of his appearance he brushed off at first glance. The scars on his fingers, the burns, however small, and charred end of a fingernail or two, are now explained. The singed end of the blond strand of hair that sits by the side of his face, sometimes tucked behind his ear, the same. Under Ravio’s careful examination, Link feels compelled to hide these imperfections from him, but the boy’s green eyes are wide with something that borders amazement, and Link stays put. Ravio opens his mouth only to close it again, and takes a moment before trying again. “How did you get a job like that ?”

“ _My uncle.”_ The man is dozing off in his armchair in the small house’s furthest corner, a manuscript balanced precariously on top of his knee. To take a guess – though perhaps the word certitude fits the purpose better – it is yet another tale of the Goddesses of old, with which he has become obsessed in his old age. Asleep, his head has lolled against his chest and stayed there, his chin atop his collarbone. He snores lightly. _“It’s a family trade.”_

Ravio eases his chair back onto four legs and cocks his head sideways in a way, Link notes off-handedly, that suits him greatly. “Blacksmiths here are chosen by bloodline ?”

_“Chosen ?”_ Link ventures, and they look at each other with equal confusion. For the first time it occurs to him that Ravio can see in him the foreignness that he observes in each of his gestures, in equal measure. The misunderstanding is natural. What puts a curious frown on his face makes Ravio’s break out into a wide grin once more, and the boy lifts his shoulders into a graceful shrug before explaining.

In Lorule, he says, the blacksmith trade is one that has been venerated for generations. Men applying for the position are handpicked, then trained by the royal family themselves. Only the best of this selection are allowed a job, at a forge of their choosing. Ravio’s father, he explains in a voice that is only slightly weaker, had gone as far as to enter the training program, before being refused the next step of his path. In the royal forges of Lorule Castle he had forged a single item, which he’d taken with him when escorted out with a dozen other of the failed chosen. The product of his labour, the last of his forging word, sits on Ravio’s wrist. A six-year-old present.

Link in turn tells him about his family, the way his uncle had once told him. There are forges in each village, he explains, for everyone in the kingdom need tools and reparations. Most of them are run by families, who pass the job from father to son, or mother to daughter. It is less tradition than a practical procedure, to entrust your lifetime work to someone you know and care for. He, as the only descendant, the quiet nephew, has inherited the title. That is all.

Ravio does not look less impressed by the end of this explanation, however. There’s a wishful, dreamy glint in his eye that suggests a certain envy of his situation. It doesn’t pay much, Link says, but the glint remains. It’s harsh work, and it’s dangerous, but not enough for it to be thrilling – but still the glint does not falter. In gentle gestures he inquires if Ravio has a job of his own, one he acquired at his coming of age, old enough at eleven to carry his first burden, and this time, the glint is swallowed entirely.

“I did, for a while ! I was a mail carrier, a paper boy for important messages. But, um, not for long. I lost the job three months ago.” He pauses this time to allow himself time, and in his stalling lets his fingers wander back onto the tablecloth and toy with his abandoned spoon. It taps against the surface at regular interval every time he presses down on it. When he speaks again, his voice wavers. “Things are dangerous, at the moment. People in the village are talkin’ about war. You know much about war, wond– Link ?”

This time Link catches onto the stammer, that slight mistake Ravio had cut off so brutally, but now is not the time to ask about it. He doesn’t know much about war, no, and he’s grateful for the fact, but he knows enough to assess its gravity. Decay, violence, greed and destruction are its horsemen, his uncle had once told him, the words of his father, spoken to him by his own father and so forth. The last war in Hyrule occurred a hundred years ago, and the tales give him no desire to know it up close. For a boy his age, to imagine his village waste away, his friends and acquaintances fending off death at their doors, is an impossible feat. All is green around him, and always has been. Surely, it could be no other way.

But Ravio sits hunched in his chair, running his forefinger down the smooth surface of his bracelet again, and he bears signs that have no place in a world of peace. The grime on his face speaks for itself. Has he no family to wipe it off for him ? The cuts and scabs that mark the skin of his legs, what little of it remains visible beneath his thin trousers, the thinness of his face that had struck Link immediately, when he’d opened that door, the _scarf,_ in the middle of summer – all at once it’s too much to look at, and Link lowers his eyes. They live lives so different that to attempt to draw parallel would be useless. They come, after all, from different worlds.

“You have a nice home,” Ravio remarks, with a smile on his face that seems determined to stay. His question, left unanswered, is forgotten. “I bet the rest of the village is nice, too. What do you do, when you’re not working ?”

_“For fun ?”_ Link asks. He’s having trouble keeping up with the boy’s pace, and the tide of his emotions. Ravio’s looking sunny again, despite the dirtiness of his face, and without the sternness of adulthood to nail him down Link lets himself be guided by him. He brushes a lock of hair out of his face and signs : _“I go… on adventures.”_

“Adventures ? What adventures are there to be had in a land where everything’s perfect ?”

“ _Well…”_ Link looks up at the wall where his old, wooden sword, splintered and mended back together, sits nailed. He’d been wearing it, strapped to his belt, the first time they met in that little clearing. In six years a lot of things have changed, but not his desire to explore. Why not share it, for once ? There are first times for everything. _“I’ll show you.”_

Show him he does. They push back their chairs and stack their plates, careful not to rouse Link’s uncle from his deserved rest, and wander over to the side of the room where Link’s bed is pushed against the wall under the broken sword’s display. Ravio recognises it immediately, and his eyes grow twice their normal size, but when Link lifts up his new, hand-crafted and gleaming weapon of choice, they manage to become bigger still. Outside, on the sunny path Link leads him down, they reduce to squinting slits, shaded by a hand brought to his forehead, and out in the near distance the forest is beginning to shape itself, leafy and tall and towering higher than both their respective sizes put together. Its mass, unfamiliar in his path, is enough to set Ravio’s will faltering and his knees buckling discreetly, bumping into each other every few steps, but Link will not be deterred from their goal and grabs his hand to lead him into the bushy grove. He doesn’t notice within the moment his sudden boldness, nor the carelessness that overcomes him, his mind too occupied planning and replanning their route through woods he knows like the palm of his own hand.

Ravio does. And, leaping over a forlorn branch that blocks his path, he welcomes the change and allows himself to be pulled through into the cool shadows.

What Link has learned about him, he now learns about Link. In the forest, he’s in his element, much more than at any dining table nor under any roof. The space between the rustling leaves above them casts gentle sunbeams down onto the crackling ground, and every time Link runs into one of them Ravio watches it light up his face for that one, split second. In that moment the boy looks like a boy, a real one, still a kid despite the added inches. The solemnness with which he’d fumbled to greet Ravio had frightened the Lorulean, and planted within him the unpleasant idea that six years was six too many, and they’d drifted away from each other in every point but their birth date – following him over streams and jumping after him atop abandoned boulders, the notion seems absurd. The boy leading him ahead is the one who’d found him in the thicket, and who’d dared abandon his little wooden sword for his sake. He’s still bright. He’s still… _wonderful._

“ _This tree,”_ Link signs, running past one such large trunk, overcome with foliage, and before he can begin Ravio can already tell that he knows everything about this tree, from its history to its name, and will tell him in great detail about its involvement in one of his quests. It’s in his eyes, he thinks, so blue, an _absolute_ blue, brimming with curiosity he could never hope to equal. His fist brandishes his sword with natural grandeur, some instinctive pride that doesn’t look boastful, not from him. Link will later tell him that he’d been dying _(quite literally, for the part of him that longed for childhood)_ to share his adventures with someone, some day, and at this time Ravio will reply that he knows, he already knew, and he won’t be lying – he’s discovering it right this moment as they run and run and run some more until they’re both out of breath and panting and collapse in the nearest clearing.

There they sit, and once able, begin the arduous task of catching up. They’re twelve, and unbothered by the world around them other than their immediate surroundings – events go mentioned and brushed away, details pulled into focus in their place. Link talks about his successive birthdays, and the job at the forge. Ravio talks about Sheerow, and home, and the dirty things he’d read peeping into the letters he delivered. They talk for longer than they’d thought possible, considering the limited interest of boys their age in sitting around, and by the time the last of their laughter – raspy or quite vocal, echoing down the vale – dies down, the sun is quietly setting overhead. This means heading home for both of them, a prospect neither are much happy about, and they work on setting it to the back of their minds as they watch the clouds turn a light shade of orange, accompanying the sun’s descent. Sheerow opens his eye for the second time today and lets out a piercing shriek that breaks them both out of their contemplation.

“Got to go,” Ravio announces, running the tip of his finger down the arch of Sheerow’s back. The bird chirps its appreciation. “It’ll be dark soon, ‘n there’s no way I’m walking home with only the moon to guide me, none !” The mere idea makes his shoulders tense up in a shiver that doesn’t go unnoticed.

“ _Stay,”_ Link offers, with a little more desperation than he’d intended. _“There’s room for you at home. We can have a– a sleepover.”_

He thinks that’s what people call them. He’s heard the girls on the town square chatter about them from time to time, and the idea has always been attractive to him. To lend your roof. He’s lied about the room, but it’s not a bad lie, is it ? If he makes himself small there’ll be space for Ravio without his uncle having to worry, and then the boy won’t have to go, back through the wall, and out of this world. The idea sparks a peculiar kind of panic within him, one he hasn’t felt since his aunt’s passing – the feeling this might be his last time seeing someone he cares for. Ravio has taken his time coming back, and this time, he doesn’t want to let him go.

The boy’s eyes are soft on him. “I know ! I don’t want to leave either. But I have to go back, okay ? ‘Sides, the house’ll be crowded if I take up a spot.” He looks at his feet, buried in the slope’s sun-kissed grass, more lush, more green than anywhere at home, and back at Link. He doesn’t look convinced, but how difficult is it to persuade someone when you’re not persuaded yourself ?

“ _Will you come back ?”_

“Obviously !” he says, and the word is like a laugh. He lets it ring between them for one sweet moment before going on. “You’re my first and best friend ! I won’t let you slip away so easily.”

Link looks up at the cheeky grin on Ravio’s face, and the certitude that accompanies it, and thinks about the six years that have separated their first and second meeting. He isn’t a selfish boy, and never has been, even in the most tender of childhoods, but today he feels a little self-serving in his desire to grab Ravio’s arm and get him to stay. Such unreasonable behaviour, however, is not what he was brought up to believe in. Holding back a charged sigh, he signs instead, struggling to get his fingers to work with him. The resulting gesture is as clumsy as their first words to each other, marked with the shy kind of vulnerability no one cares to show. “ _Promise ?”_

Ravio nods enthusiastically, his chin bobbing up and down with the motion fast enough to set poor Sheerow squawking from his spot in his scarf. He scratches the little bird’s head to pacify him, and smiles up at Link to nod once more. “Of course ! I promise. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.”

_“Okay,”_ Link acquiesces, mostly to convince himself. Feeling a little foolish, he extends a hand towards the other boy, fighting hard to keep his fidgeting to a bare minimum. They’re twelve now – they can say goodbye like grown men do.

But Ravio only accepts his hand as an invitation, and pounces on him to hug him instead, wrapping his arms so tightly around his back that breathing becomes a small labour. The contact fends off the growing evening breeze and warms him several layers in, so much that when Ravio steps back, the buzz in his chest remains. There’s a look of banality about the Lorulean, suggesting such sudden hugging is to be expected in the future. To the flushed and flustered boy, that doesn’t sound too bad.

“Gotta run,” Ravio says, and starts his way up the hill. Link could accompany him some of the way, but he isn’t confident in his ability to just stop there, and decides to stay put. The boy walks backwards up the slope to keep his eyes on him, grinning with every accidental stumble. “I’ll see you tomorrow, wonderboy !”

They exchange waves, Ravio’s as large as the length of his arm, and when the waving’s all done with and his shoulder is tired, he offers one last smile and turns his back on him. The urge to run after him into the woods, tug his scarf and beg him to stay, is strong in him and in the dull weight that befalls upon his chest, but damn it ! He just needs a little more faith. Once Ravio had promised to come back, and he had. Now he’s promising again, and Link will simply have to grit his teeth and believe for once, not in the Goddesses nor fate nor any other astral presences, but in his friend. Tomorrow, Ravio will be there.

Tomorrow, Ravio _will be there._

He does not have to wait until tomorrow, he finds, when as he’s dusting off his knees and buckling his sword into his belt he notices a figure hurrying out of the forest’s entrance. He sees the shining green eyes before the leaves that have fallen into his hair and tangled there, but most noticeable is the tenacious tremble his hands display when he wraps them around one end of his scarf and tugs anxiously. When he spots Link, still standing at the top of the slope, he runs to him and manages, looking like a hunted boy, to ask :

“Could Mister Hero please walk me home…?”

Link is lying in his bed, looking at the spot on the ceiling where wood had begun to rot and drip from the rainy seasons, when storm upon storm had flooded the village. There used to be a dark smudge there, a growing stain that he’d watch change shape every time the rain fell. Now the surface has been boarded up, boarded right up, with planks and nails and a slob of paint that doesn’t quite match the rest of the surface. Tonight he looks up there and examines the dried drops of paint that stick to the sides of the repaired board, clinging to the detail for breath – tonight he feels sick to his stomach, and can’t seem to find sleep.

His brain courses forward and backwards at once, turning in circles, making no progress. The nausea seizing his throat doesn’t budge. He can’t tell if it’s fear or excitement, or a cocktail of both, hastily mixed and poured right into his head. He hasn’t eaten this evening, and has no plans to swallow anything before sunrise, lest it come right back up. His uncle had watched him push away his plate and leave his glass untouched, and had asked, jagged, joking and meaning well : “Lovesick for the first time, son ?” Link had only heard him recount in breathy mutters the adventures he’d had, as a young boy, not finding it within himself to lend his ear to listen, but had stayed until the old man finished his tale. He had helped him into bed, and blown out all the candles, and rolled onto his own mattress where he won’t rest, not tonight, not in this state.

His eyes stay open until the night is a mellow black. They’re still open when the sun begins to rise, casting the kingdom in early-morning white light, and still opens when the clouds turn from grey to white, the sky from grey to blue. When the knock on the door resounds, waking his uncle in the nearby room, they’re closed, but not for long.

He leaps to the door and, without bothering to tuck his shirt in, swings it open.

“Good morning, Link ! Am I too early ?”

Wonderboy is the name on the tip of Ravio’s tongue, every time he has to call for Link. Wonderboy is the name he almost spills several times a day, barely catching himself at times, missing his error entirely most. With his gestures impossible to understand, for a six year old with no notion of sign language other than a basic hello, he’d had to make up a name to go with the face, and where Link had opted for ‘the boy’, his ambitions had been greater. Wonderboy.

It held all he remembered of Link and more in its fist, encapsulated the impression that the young boy had left upon him, strolling into that clearing with unmatched confidence, sword brandished and at the ready. To the terrified Lorulean boy, who understood nothing of his signs, he looked like a complete other species, a wonder to behold. But he was just a boy, who’d offered him a helping hand and kept him company and expressed the desire to be his friend. And so he’d been, with his curly hair that shone like the sun and eyes the deepest blue, wonderboy for six years in Ravio’s mind. And that was that – that _is_ that, in fact, because he isn’t about to let the nickname go, not when it’s so fitting.

He visits Link every day. The patterns are always the same, the mornings blending into afternoons without them having the time to realise. The forest, the village, the lakes and the mountains and the castle, just north of Link’s house, they visit them all. In some cases all they’re authorised to do is gawk, so gawk they do, with wide and curious eyes, unnervingly round. When they’re not running around they talk, about anything that crosses their minds, all filters removed, and with every passing second they spend together his opinion of the blond boy is reinforced, because he’s wonderful, he truly is, in everything he does. It takes very little time for him to realise he’d follow him to the end of the world and back, without him having to ask. He’s captivated.

For Link, these times are the best of his life. For twelve years he’s been a single child, a treasured but lonely, lonely nephew in his aunt and uncle’s care, playing by himself with wooden toys and tall sticks. Shy, special, _different_ – he’s heard quite some words about himself over the years, and all of them have always led him to entertaining himself in an empty back garden. But the boy from the wall is back, the one he’d mistook for a fairy _(which wasn’t so far off the mark)_ , and for the first time he has a playmate, a companion, a best friend. Ravio’s always there when he wakes up, waiting by the door, and rarely misses a day. There’s so much of his life that he’s been eager to share that he doesn’t know where to begin, and therefore does not – instead he takes the boy with him, everywhere, anywhere he goes. Forging, exploring, cooking and cleaning, they do it together. Errands, shopping, sword-play and napping. His company has invigorated him and only fuelled his desire to catch up on those years he’d lost growing up too fast. His newfound natural expression, a soothed and beaming smile, attracts attention from his fellow villagers, and a whole new set of sweet-scented letters reach his doorstep, but he never opens them. There’s no time, not with Ravio by his side, and there are more thrilling things ahead. Thus the notion of love remains foreign to him, a far and distant feeling he knows he’ll discover one day, when his days aren’t bursting with so much action.

But he stays busy. For a year, and then another, and another after that. Ravio’s visits become less frequent but just as regular, like clockwork. Everyday becomes once a week, twice if time allows it. Link doesn’t mind, or rather would if he felt his absence, but he never gets the chance. The days he’s missing fly by, and he’s content that way. Before he knows it he’s fifteen, two inches taller than his dearest friend, and starting to uncover what he’s been missing all these years.

It's a very embarrassing process to the boy who grew up alone. It starts in the smallest of ways, too, fate definitely set on not giving him a hand in the matter, no matter how agitated he became. On the hill – _their hill_ – where they’d sat on the first night of their reunion, when the sun shone right, it sometimes framed Ravio’s face in a way that made him look far younger, and far from human, a delicacy in his face that he simply couldn’t place. Those times, he wanted to save that picture in his head, to look at it again later, anytime he wanted, but it always slipped away, and that sense of loss, that _tug_ in his chest, was the very first sign that something with him was not as it always was.

His life becomes very full of feelings and moments he wants to store in little bottles, and keep with him at all times. When Ravio pats him on the back with all the strength he can muster, which isn’t much, when he prattles on and on about a detail from his side of the wall, invoking in great detail and colourful words the events that had transpires, and Link is happy to listen just to hear something that’s him, so very him that it could come from no one else. If he could put a cork on all these little things, he could pop the bottles open when Ravio was in his world, and he’d still be with him there, soul at least, slowing down the days of his life that go by like a flash. But he can’t, not even keep trace – he’s no good at drawing, and the letters jumble when he writes. All he has left is the memories, and he doesn’t know what to do with them, not at all.

His uncle has started to go deaf over the course of the three past years, to the point when Link signs to him, he signs back. Their dialogue has been reduced to short and straight to the point sentences, none of which could possibly cover the extent of his current troubles. Who else is there to ask ? The boy himself, of course, who’d be happy to listen, but Link feels a certain bashfulness that pushes him to hide, not show, what’s going on inside his very thick skull. This leaves him all alone… alone with the letters.

_Dear Link,_

_We’ve spoken only little, and I can’t bring myself to say this to your face. It’s a far too frightful idea ! I don’t think I can bring myself to shush what I’m feeling either, so I’ve decided to write to you. I hope it doesn’t sound too stupid, coming from someone like me, but I must tell you : I like you, very very much. Whenever you come over for bread I can feel my heart beating so hard that I’m always worried it might leap right out ! Those free brioches I offer you, whenever you run by with your sword strapped on your back, weren’t disinterested. I simply think you should know. If by a miracle you happen to feel the same way, please write back to me. If not, forget all about this ! Crushes don’t always hurt for very long, my mother says._

_With love and admiration,_

_Estella_

_LINK,_

(this one in jaunty crayoned letters and left unsigned, the paper thick with dust)

_I THINK YOU’RE CUTE. COME PLAY OVER AGAIN !_

_Dear blacksmith,_

_I don’t think that we’ve ever met ! I’ve certainly met you, but you have yet to meet me back. We’re more or less the same age, I think – I’ll be fifteen when the summer solstice is celebrated. I live in the small cottage house neighbour to the forge – you surely know my house, because there are always half a dozen kids running around the garden. But while my brothers and sisters play with their blocks and trains, I’m on the first floor, our attic, looking out of the window. I’ve watched you work a hundred days at least ! At first I thought that the warmth I felt, looking from afar, was just a certain admiration – you have remarkable form, really. I certainly don’t have anything like that, and my looks don’t work in my favour, but I can write, and write I do ! To you. Everyone’s sending letters, why not me ? This admiration, it’s more than that, I’ve come to find. Calling it love would be idyllic, but it’s along those lines. Let’s name it a faraway crush ! Even if this is too much to hear, and you want nothing like that with me, please drop by the house one day. I make a smashing cup of tea._

_Long days and pleasant nights,_

_Theo_

(this one a plain piece of paper, in which a flower – _dandelion ? –_ has been carefully pressed, unsigned, untouched by title, name or date; it simply says: )

_I love you._

This isn’t working, and he realises it quickly. Several afternoons he spends going through the small box of letters that have come over the years, always around the summer, always around his birthday, careful with the hands his morning work has burned and scarred. He’s been light-headed and distracted, hoping for an easy solution out of this, but it isn’t working ! because these people don’t _know_ him, these people aren’t his friends. They know nothing of him, of who he is and what he likes, what he wants in life – it doesn’t compare, not even slightly, to what he feels for Ravio. It does, however, offer him a name to put on the feelings, no, on the entire phenomenon. A crush. He has a teenage crush, his first, and finally, the penny has dropped. It’s very loud in his mind, but as it turns out –

He’s content. His confusion has more or less vanished from his mind, with the certitude that everyone his age goes through something like this, and he acknowledges deep down how lucky he is to have someone like Ravio as the object of his affection. He’s a boy whose presence is easy to bask in, a boy who’s trusting, tactile, full of unrestrained chirpiness. There’s no added difficulties to their relationship – if anything, Link finds himself living their time together with more intensity than before, because, hey, he has a crush ! His first. His first crush !

Never has he shown his emotions very much, an old habit, tough to kill, a biting reflex, but he feels like he’s been smiling more. Ravio has told him so, several times, calling him wonderboy the way he does, that nickname that makes Link feel like he’s on top of the world. In an opposite but equal reaction, as all reactions are, Ravio’s expressive manners weaken over the weeks. His eyes still sparkle, how on earth could they not, but they’re sad, so very sad that sometimes Link has to look away.

“Things aren’t looking good for me,” he confesses one day. They’re sitting in the back garden on two old pillows thrown into the grass, the early autumn clouds too weak to shield them from the sun. The look on his face doesn’t fit the mood, not at all. He turns to look at Link, and finds in his eyes something unpleasant. “For my kingdom, I mean.”

Why so ? Link asks, though he thinks he has an idea. Their talks of war, over the course of their friendship, have never had the privilege of ceasing entirely.

“Nothing’s right anymore,” Ravio says quietly, and speaks no longer for a while. Link is starting to think that he’ll be leaving it at that, with those heavy words hanging in the air, but he stifles a pained sigh and covers his eyes with a thin hand. “There aren’t any sides to take. Everyone’s fighting amongst themselves. Something happened to our Triforce.”

Many questions arise in Link’s mind, such a great amount, in fact, that he wouldn’t know where to start, but questions aren’t what Ravio needs. _“What will you do ?”_

The boy – no, young man ! – offers him no more than a weak shrug. He’s been coming to him dirtier, sadder than ever before. Last week he missed his first visit in three years, leaving Link standing by the door for the best part of the day. Today he seems to regret coming at all.

“What would you do in my place ?” he asks quite suddenly, and turns to face Link. The bright sunlight doesn’t make his expression any less sombre. “You always know what to do, wonderboy.”

To this Link has no ready answer. The concept of strikes and famine and war and peace, death and bloodshed and all remains too far from his reach. In Hyrule all is well. In Hyrule the closest thing to a conflict they have is old history and legends. They describe a hero so fierce he was chosen himself by the Goddesses to protect the land, and never failed nor dropped his weapons even faced with the most virulent evil. He’s always admired the hero of legend for his mindless devotion, and his renowned courage. Hadn’t he sought out that thrill, all those afternoons in the woods ? But games and real combat are different things, one leaves scars and the other not – would he be capable, truly and completely, to lay down his life to say the honour of his kingdom ?

_“I think..”_ he signs, _“I’d do my part. I’d find a way to make a change.”_

To this, Ravio barely nods. For a long moment no part of him moves, not even his eyes, fixed on the horizon. His hair, gently tussled by the wind ahead, is the only signal that he’s still there, still flesh and not stone. And once the staring is done, and his neck starts to tire, he puts his usual smile back on and apologises for souring the mood. Link tells him he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t tell him he’d do anything to help him, even take his place, but he thinks it very hard.

That evening Ravio tells him he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to come back. He doesn’t specify if he means this as a ‘soon’ or as a ‘permanently’, but he does cry, when Link embraces him like he does every time they part. The only thing that keeps Link from tears is the certitude that he’d do better to save them for later, when he’ll need them very badly. They say goodbye like it’s any other day, and it might have been, for anyone walking past – a daily parting between those two boys, fiery boys, that have become absolutely inseparable. The red tear-tracks lining Ravio’s face speak otherwise, in their small, discreet way. Sheerow cries in his scarf as he disappears behind the house, all the way to the thicket. Link watches his first love vanish into the trees, scathed by his feeling of helplessness, warmed by the certainty that he’ll see him again. He has to. Ravio always comes back – he just has to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And

_wait…_

His first sensation is a hammer striking his skull from the inside, with the desperate intention to break its way out. His second is a flare of pain that runs from his forehead to his jaw, and he realises there’s no hammer, nor breakout going on. He just has a terrible, terrible headache.

His eyelids flutter, a gentle orange flare meeting his eyes through the skin, but he isn’t ready to open his eyes just yet. He takes a moment to run a checklist on his body parts, but everything’s there, intact and still in place. Rough sheets crinkle between his fingers. The back of his head throbs against his pillow every time he takes a sharp breath. He settles on sighing out the pain for the time being.

He’s home, isn’t he ? His surroundings have that smell, the smell of familiarity. His nose scrunches up – candles, apples, butter and bread. The delicate scent of wet laundry. And besides him, something he knows but can’t quite place, something breathing, something _laughing_ very softly by his bedside. He was at the chapel, wasn’t he, the sanctuary up north, carrying the captain’s sword. And that man, that pale, white man with the dark braids and dark smile, he’d turned into a painting. His skull cries in anguish, forcing the memories to retreat, but he can still feel the roughness of the church carpet on his face. He’d fainted on the spot.

“Oh ! He’s waking up !” a voice exclaims by his side, so familiar that his heart skips a critical beat. Unable to wait any longer, he lets his eyes fly open and adapt to the candlelight, desperate to see the face of his saviour. The hope running through his mind and veins is irrational, but he’s sure, he’s so _sure –_

“ _Ah !”_

It’s a rabbit. An oversized, purple rabbit. He’s thumped his head a little too hard, he decides, and allows his lungs to do the silent screaming in his place. His fingers scramble in an attempt to shy away from the looming eyes above him, but slip across the sheets in a neat arc and send him tumbling out of bed. The figure besides him straightens up as well, revealing a cloak matching the rabbit head in colour. It’s a hood, he realises, sprawled upside-down on the carpet. There’s a person under it.

“What a way to greet me !” says the voice, causing his pulse to throb once more. The figure puts their hands on their hips and tuts audibly. “Wouldn’t you say, Mister Hero ?”

Link’s eyes widen.

“You’re as thick as before, aren’t you,” the voice tells him lovingly, and kneels to help him up. He can already see the grin hiding behind the fabric, because he’s seen it hundreds of times. At the tender age of fifteen he’d let his first love go with the knowledge they’d meet again, and four years later, he’s come back. It’s him. It’s him, isn’t it ?

The figure’s hands emerge from their sleeves, hands he knows because he’s _held them !_ and reach up to pull back his hood. Under the big, worrying eyes on that big, worrying hood, a face he loves so dearly waits. Ravio grins his best grin yet and puts his hands on both sides of Link’s face, cradling the space where roundness had clung to his cheeks. This time he’s not the one who cries, but he wipes Link’s tears with gentle thumbs and leans in to kiss his nose.

“You’re as pretty as ever, wonderboy,” he smiles, eyes twinkling. “And man, do we have things to tell each other.”

“ _What are you doing here ?”_ Link manages, his hands trembling with such blissful disbelief that signing is a challenge. _“It’s been –“_

“Too long ? Absolutely. I’m so sorry I made you wait for four whole years –“

_“No, it’s alright, you’re back, it’s –“_

“Fine ?” Ravio’s grinning as he’s shaking his head. “Not quite yet ! See, I couldn’t come back because I was busy, and all that busy work has led me back to you. Lorule and I need your help for something big.”

_“Busy ?”_ Link inquires, wiping his wet eyes with a careless sleeve. _“What have you been doing ?”_

This time Ravio offers him an expression that’s special, like the ones he’d like to bottle and keep. His eyes shine with pride and hope, his lips a wide smile. The candles flicker over his face. “My part. Now, Mister Hero, how interested would you be in giving me a hand in saving the world ?”

It’s Link’s turn to beam, eyes still wet and red all around, and his gestures are quite certain this time.

_“Sounds like an adventure to me.”_


End file.
